Vuelta a España 2011: Stage 11 Preview

Summit finish debut

Often bypassed by the Vuelta, Galicia is back on the race route with a cluster of tough stages, starting with this one that concludes with a first ever summit finish at the Manzaneda ski station. Rather like the Covatilla stage, there are rugged but not overly testing mountain sections early on, but the main interest comes right at the end of the day. Rising at an average of 6 per cent for 19km, the climb’s steepest sections come just before the resort, where the road drops then ramps up again to the summit’s TV masts. Given the length of this climb, a breakaway is unlikely to survive.

One year on from his controversial defeat at the hands of Pedro Delgado, Britain’s Robert Millar finished runner-up again
to another Spaniard in equally dubious circumstances. This time the Scot’s conqueror was Galicia’s Álvaro Pino, who rode the race of his life. However, key to Pino’s success was the assistance of compatriots when he had been dropped by Millar on the climb to Sierra Nevada. Particularly important was the pacing of Pino undertaken by Marino Lejarreta of the rival Seat team. The Basque led Zor’s Pino back up to Millar, who ended up losing the race by just 66 seconds.